Wind energy assessment using WRF model: A case study for the Kerman province

Development of new wind farms requires accurate assessment of wind potential in the long term. These assessments can be used to decide to install a wind farm in a specific location. One of the new potential survey methods used for this purpose is the mesoscale models. This thesis is studying a new generation of numerical weather models, called WRF model. In this method, WRF model was used to downscale the wind archival data obtained from the final analysis of the global model and the WRF model output was processed by WAsP analyst then wind energy was evaluated. Finally model accuracy was measured by comparing the WAsP output of SANA mast dat(The actual evaluation of the power generation). A case study was conducted for the Kerman province region; a) In order to assess the wind potential in the region, wind data from SANA masts (Rafsanjan, Orzoiyeh and Shahr e babak) were analyzed directly by WAsP software, among which Rafsanjan with energy density of 202 watts per square meter, had the highest value. b)WRF model was run for the first 15 days of April, 2007 and the output was valued at Rafsanjan mast position that model estimated energy density with 1.96% difference in comparison with observational values. c) Wind Atlas of region was calculated by using the WRF output which is the suitable sample of wind mean in Kerman province.